


find it hard to sleep tonight

by gdgdbaby



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She ushers the two of them out like a couple of ducklings and locks the door behind her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	find it hard to sleep tonight

**Author's Note:**

> first christmases, written for advent. originally posted at [livejournal](http://gdgdbaby.livejournal.com/100831.html).

Christmas in 1952 is on a Thursday, which means staying at the office till midnight with Lix and Bel the evening before, writing copy and making final edits on the morning edition by flickering lamplight. Bel's gives one last push and finally dies, the shade smoking as she tips its skeletal remains into the trash.

By the end of the night, Lix is dumping whiskey into her tea and inhaling it by the pot. "Go home, children," she says around the rim of her cup, waving them off. "I'll finish the front page layout myself and have the rest of it sent off to the printer's. I promise, nothing's going to happen without you here."

"But—"

"Bel, sweetheart. It's Christmas Eve. Go dancing, drink yourself silly, find a nice boy to take you home. Here, Freddie will do." She ushers the two of them out like a couple of ducklings and locks the door behind her. "Happy Christmas, make terrible decisions. Ta!"

Bel glances at him and he can see the exhaustion take over, her cheeks going pale, eyelids drooping. "I'm far too tired to go out tonight, Freddie."

"That's alright," he says, smiling. "I'll walk you home, anyway."

"Very chivalrous of you," she says drily, pulling her gloves on in the hallway. "Are you in tomorrow?"

"Bright and early," Freddie says, and shrugs his coat on. "You?"

"I want to be," she says, frowning as she winds her shawl around her neck and steps out into the street. "My mother's no doubt planned something extravagant, though, and I'll have to go along with what she wants all day."

"Won't it be nice to spend the holidays with family?"

Bel sends him a strange smile. "It always seems like it should be, doesn't it?"

 

 

"The bloody door always gets stuck," Bel says at the top of the staircase, laughing a little breathlessly as she tries to pluck the key out again.

"Let me," Freddie says. He makes a half-hearted attempt to push, but the wood doesn't budge.

Bel pats his shoulder and edges him aside. "Good effort," she wheezes, and manages to shove the door open herself. "There. Jesus. Come in for a drink?"

The gin burns down his throat as he takes in the aesthetics of the tiny flat—the kitchenette and its chipped china, the thick quilts spread out over the bed, the faint whistling of the radiator as it rattles to life. The couch is a garish, scratchy paisley that clashes tremendously with the wallpaper.

"I'm sorry it's such a mess," Bel says, kicking her shoes off and sinking down on the sofa, ice clinking in her glass.

Freddie shakes his head, swallowing. "Not at all."

"You don't mind if I talk shop, do you?" She doesn't wait for his response before she launches into a tirade about pollution in London and the Great Smog, how the government had never taken air quality seriously and exactly why they should.

The heater sputters out with a quiet click at two in the morning. Bel pulls out more blankets and half a bottle of wine, keeps talking until her speech slurs and she falls asleep against Freddie's shoulder, breathing soft and even. He blinks down at the crown of her head and exhales slowly.

He extricates himself from the cocoon of blankets and lets her down. She murmurs something indistinct, turns her face into the couch.

 

 

She walks in an hour late the next morning, just as Freddie's loitering about her desk with a package.

"I thought you weren't in today," Freddie says, spine snapping straight.

She squints at him suspiciously. "What's that?" she asks.

"New lamp," he replies, plunking it down.

Bel looks pleased, and unwraps it with much aplomb. "It's yellow," she says, laughing.

"Of course it is. What happened to your mum?"

"She cancelled," Bel says. "She does that."

Lix leans over the partition between their desks, cigarette balanced between her fingers. "Oh, darling, that means you'll be able to come out with us tonight, doesn't it?"

"With pleasure," she says brightly, and positions Freddie's lamp in the corner of her desk. "I'm sorry, Freddie, I didn't think to—"

"It's fine," he says, striding back to his own chair, a small smile pulling at his lips. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
